Quantic Dreams sues French media over toxic workplace allegations

Quantic Dreams has launched litigation against two French media outlets, following recent allegations that the Detroit: Become Human developer was a toxic workplace.

The lawsuits, against newspaper Le Monde and the website Mediapart follow reports they ran suggesting that employees had been subjected to a culture of sexist jokes, racist comments and crunch working periods that were tantamount to bullying, and which singled out studio heads David Cage (one of the development world’s big stars) and Guillaume de Fondaumiere. Quantic Dreams has vehemently denied the allegations.

Cage countered the allegations at the time by saying: “Do we want to talk about homophobia? We work with Ellen Page, who is fighting for LGBT rights. Do we want to talk about racism? We are working with Jesse Williams, who is fighting for civil rights in the United States. Judge my work.”

Now, Kotaku, in the process of interviewing Quantic Dreams about the forthcoming Detroit: Become Human, has unearthed the information that the developer is about to go to court (in June) regarding the allegations. It is thought to be the first time a development studio has litigated against the press over negative reports.

Detroit: Become Human, a PlayStation 4 exclusive, is due to be released on 25 May. We’ll bring you all the related news as it emerges.

Steve Boxer has been writing about videogames since the early 1990s. His first console was an Atari VCS, and he misspent most of his youth in the 1980s in the arcades. As well as for Green Man Gaming, he can be found writing for The Guardian, Empire, TechRadar and Pocket-Lint. He’s currently having trouble deciding whether his favourite console is his Xbox One X or his Switch, and plays a wide range of games, but especially RPGs (he loves a good JRPG) action-adventure titles, shooters of all descriptions and driving games. Follow him here.